I have, further, to draw the reader’s attention to the circular at the end of the book, but it is not necessary for me to point out the advisability, or to detail the many praiseworthy reasons, for the erection of memorials to illustrious dead, stimulating and encouraging as they are to succeeding generations, engendering patriotic sentiments, and recalling to us the history of the past by which knowledge is weighed and gained, and that from the lesson we learn almost unwittingly to shape and guide our future steps. In conclusion, I would express a hope that the following chapters will be read far and wide with as much pleasure and profit as they have been by myself, and that through their agency, and out of public subscription, we may soon see rising in the heart of the capital of Wessex, worthy not of England alone, but of the English-speaking race, a memorial to one who may rightly be regarded as one of the principal founders of the English nation and its language, a pioneer of improvement, liberty, learning and education, and who, though a thousand years have sped, still forms a mighty beacon of all the highest aims and the noblest aspirations that may dominate the hearts of men. A. B. _1st May 1899._ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION, by Sir Walter Besant, F.S.A. 1 ALFRED AS KING, by Frederic Harrison, Hon. Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford 39 ALFRED AS A RELIGIOUS MAN AND AN EDUCATIONALIST, by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Bristol 69 ALFRED AS A WARRIOR, by Charles Oman, M.A., F.S.A., Fellow of All Souls, Oxford 115 ALFRED AS A GEOGRAPHER, by Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., President of the Royal Geographical Society 149 ALFRED AS A WRITER, by Rev. John Earle, Professor of Anglo-Saxon, Oxford 169 ENGLISH LAW BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST, by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence 207 ALFRED AND THE ARTS, by Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A. 241 INDEX 259 INTRODUCTION